


everything you thought you knew

by ShoshanaFics



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Episode 188, Gen, No beta we die like the romans, Wilde’s own personal Guilt Plane, im so sorry for writing this, screams THEY COULD HAVE BEEN FRIENDS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 01:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30132216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShoshanaFics/pseuds/ShoshanaFics
Summary: Contempt would have been better. He could have taken that. He’s seen it in his dreams after all, over and over again, a face full of hatred and anger, all directed at him. Good. He deserves it. But the way she’s looking at him right now is so far from what he expects that it almost makes him dizzy.“Alright, boss,” she says lightly.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	everything you thought you knew

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Constellations by The Oh Hellos 
> 
> I am sorry for writing this. No I’m not <3

There is an emptiness around him. He can feel it, even before he opens his eyes; a vast expanse of nothing, stretching out in a howling plain all around him. 

He opens his eyes. 

The sun has not quite begun to dawn, but there is an edge of faded blue to the desert that suggests it might choose to do so soon. It is  _ hot _ . The edges of the horizon are blurring in heat-haze. The sky above him is immense, still nighttime-dark, but the stars have fled with the promise of daybreak to come. With a start he remembers the rope around his waist and looks down, panic beginning to sear the edges of his nerves, and the buzzing rises in his ears as he sees the snapped end hanging loosely from his torso, shifting gently in the warm wind. The knot is as tight as ever, but the anchor is gone. 

If you give yourself over to mindless panic, you’re no use to yourself or anyone else.Wilde bites back the urge to cry out and takes a deep, steadying breath. The air is very dry, and tastes like the most frightening period of his life thus far. 

He knows where he is. 

With an almost physical dread, he begins to turn around. 

He is completely unprepared for the sight of her, standing quietly just in front of the expanse of the glass sheet, and it feels like a dagger in his heart. For a moment they just stare at each other, her seemingly unwilling to move and Wilde unable to, trying to catch his breath. She waits for him patiently. He has nowhere else to go, after all. 

Eventually he approaches, shoes slipping a bit in the sand, and it gives his heart another funny pang to once again be made the clumsier one by sheer proximity. She isn’t moving, but she’s still holding herself with that quiet, catlike grace he’d come to so admire. 

Sasha looks older. Her curls, once black, are streaked with premature steely grey. She’s grown into her gauntness it seems, cheekbones high, eyes as bright as ever. Her leather jacket is draped over her shoulders, the ends of her toga brown with dust. She has been waiting here a long time. 

And she watches him. 

Contempt would have been better. He could have taken that. He’s seen it in his dreams after all, over and over again, a face full of hatred and anger, all directed at him. Good. He deserves it. But the way she’s looking at him right now is so far from what he expects that it almost makes him dizzy. 

“Alright, boss,” she says lightly. 

It takes him an infinity to compose himself. “Sasha. You’re...” he can’t keep the wobble from his voice as he says, “you’re looking well.” 

“Yeah,” she says. “Thanks.” Then: “Not too bad yourself, Wilde. I like the hair.” 

He reaches up absentmindedly to curl his fingers around a pure white lock, automatically reaching to brush the numb unevenness on his cheek where the scar should be, and some distant part of him registers a moment of surprise when the skin beneath them is smooth. Oh, right. “It is... quite the story.” 

“I’ll bet.” 

Silence spreads across the desert for a moment as Wilde ghosts his fingers over his lip and cheekbone. “...We got your letter.” 

“Oh. Yeah.” What is that emotion in her eyes, that odd look that makes Wilde feel like the ground has been pulled out from underneath him, like his heart is plummeting towards the earth at immense speed?

(Again?)

“You seem to have... done all right, for yourself.” 

“Yeah, well.” She takes a deep breath. “We make do with what we’ve got. Ain’t that right, Wilde?” 

And there it is. 

_ I miss you, Sasha. Sasha, I’m so sorry. I have the most awful dreams, Sasha, and so many of them are just like this. I thought I would be able to get you out. I held out hope for so long. I held out hope longer than it was smart of me to do so. I’m sorry I hoped for so long. I’m sorry I didn’t hope for longer. There was still a world to save, Sasha. Forgive me. Forgive me.  _

“Back in Damascus,” she says slowly. “When you... when we left.” It’s not a question, but he answers anyway. 

“I was... ill,” he says delicately. 

“Well I know that  _now_ .” 

_ I let you go. I let you go, Sasha, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me... _

“That wasn’t your fault, Wilde. Do you know what  _ was _ your fault? Not  telling us.” 

Wilde swallows. “I-“ 

“We could have  _ helped _ you, Wilde.” 

“You were-“ 

She looks at him, long and hard and so wise and so very, very sad. “You just decided you couldn’t trust us, I guess.” 

He had been ready for hatred, even fury, but not this. Not the calm, regretful compassion of someone who had spent years trying to come to terms with their own grief. It is so much worse than anger. To know there is no emotion left to temper, no wound to try and heal; it scarred over long ago by itself, and Wilde can never even try to apologize because there is no apology left to be made. This is how things are. You made a stupid decision based on pride and shortsightedness and it got other people killed, but I have grown beyond the pain and trauma and know too much to be angry.  


It is only then that Wilde registers the look in her eyes. 

She  _ pities _ him. 

She pities him so much it hurts her. 

It is so, so infinitely worse than anger. 

“How’s your backup team, then?” Sasha asks, and her eyes say without any animosity: you will do it again. You poor, stupid, prideful man. Nothing you can do will ever make up for the fact that you are the way you are. Love them now, so that it hurts when you lose them. Maybe then you’ll learn your lesson. 

“I think of you often, Sasha,” he hears himself say. “Every day.” 

She chuckles. There’s an edge to it. “Me too, Wilde.” 

**Author's Note:**

> To be clear: this is Nightmare Sasha, not the real Sasha. I don’t think she would react exactly this way... but it certainly would hurt Wilde more so that’s what we’re going for, WeRespectHisCraft.jpg 
> 
> Once we find out how they’re supposed to ‘win’ this puzzle I might write a second chapter to this


End file.
